In cooperating data processing systems such as grid-based systems and collaborative streaming analysis systems, autonomous sites in the system can establish “agreements” there between to arrange access to remote resources for a period of time. For example, A. Andrieux et al., “Web Services Agreement Specification (WS-Agreement),” Version 2006/07, GWD-R (Proposed Recommendation), Grid Resource Allocation Agreement Protocol (GRAAP) WGGRAAP-WG, July 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, describes a protocol for establishing such agreements. The determination of which resources to reserve to accomplish a task need not be known a priori, because multiple plans for accomplishing the same task are available and they may require access to different resources.
Given a processing task, multiple functionally equivalent plans can be generated, e.g., through a planner component at a site. Each plan requires a set of resources, possibly from other sites in the system. The site can use any candidate plan to accomplish the processing task, with different performance/cost tradeoffs. To deploy a plan, the site needs to obtain all the resources required by that plan. It makes agreements with other sites, which control access to their resources. These agreements need to be negotiated between sites before the plan can be executed.